Commissions to Hilda Paredes & Alex Paxton

Hypo/Hyper brings together the extremes of musical kinetic energy in a concert experience that highlights the act of musical listening. Ensemble Loadbang’s project aims to make the audience aware of how the body listens and responds to textures of extremity by juxtaposing static and patient music with dense, relentless works.

The goal is to uncover the ways in which musical vocabularies shape the experience of listening as a physical and psychological activity and discover similarities in the two approaches that can only be revealed through their cohabitation. To this end, two newly commissioned works by Alex Paxton (b. 1990) and Hilda Paredes (b. 1957) are made possible by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. The works expand the perception of what hyperactivity means.

Paxton’s music draws its virtuosity and exuberance from queer, mediasaturated hedonism; his experience as a primary schoolteacher taught him the joys of childhood musicmaking, and his works reflect a constant pursuit of sugar-rushes, witching-hours, and sandbox time.

The audience is given the opportunity to hear in close succession works that bear surface similarities, but function according to totally different currents beneath the surface. Subtleties, nuances, and gradations between approaches are gradually uncovered. Ultimately, Hypo/Hyper focuses the concert experience onto the faculty of listening itself, revealing how we listen, how different musics ask to be attended, how juxtaposition shapes the physical experience of listening, and how bodies in a space of commune breath and move through time together.

Further information:
loadbang.com

Dates

December 8, 2024
Int-Act Festival, Bangkok